A variety of electrical connectors, each comprising a male plug and a female receptacle are known in the art for establishing electrical connections between conductors located on different printed circuit boards or discrete conductors terminated to the connectors. The female receptacle has a housing with a plurality of female terminals laterally arranged at regular intervals and inserted in slots located in the female housing. Likewise, the male plug has a housing with a plurality of male terminals laterally arranged at regular intervals and inserted in slots located in the male housing. When the male and female portions are mated together, an electrical connection is established between circuits on printed circuit boards or discrete conductors connected to the male and female terminals of the electric connector.
A number of prior art stamped female terminals is shown in FIG. 7. A female terminal 5' has a T shaped soldering foot 5a' on one side, a contact section 5b', for engaging a male terminal 6, on the other side, and a mounting section 5c' integrally connected both to the T shaped soldering foot 5a' and the contact section 5b' for mounting the female terminal 5' in the female housing 1. The female terminal shape may be stamped out from a metal strip, and the terminal is then used as is without requiring any secondary manufacturing operations to be performed on it. The T-shaped soldering foot 5a' of the female terminal 5' resists forces trying to pull the female terminal from the printed circuit board during the disengagement of the male housing from the female housing. As shown in FIG. 7, the die-cut surfaces of the punched female terminal are used as contact surfaces. The length of the terminal portion joining the T-shape soldering foot 5a' and the contact section 5b' is designed to be long enough to make the contact section 5b' resilient. Accordingly, the joining portion is relatively long and it increases the lateral width of the terminal.
The prior art female terminal shape has the following disadvantages:
1) As shown in FIG. 7, the female terminal shape has a relatively long lateral extension L, spanning the distance from the upright contact section 5b' to the T-shaped soldering foot 5a' from one side to the terminal to the other side of the terminal.
The female terminal shapes to be punched from a given metal strip are limited to a relatively small number because of the relatively long lateral extension of each female terminal shape.
2) All the female terminals have to be separated from the longitudinal carrier strip 11 prior to insertion, and therefore are inserted individually one after another in the slots of the female housing. This is a time consuming and tedious work.
3) Each female terminal contacts a mating male terminal by its narrow die-cut surface rather than its uncut smooth surface. It is difficult to make the die-cut surface as smooth as the top or bottom of the metal piece even if the die-cut surface is subjected to finishing operations, and accordingly it is difficult to establish a good electrical contact between the surface contact areas of the mating terminals.